Rainbow Bridge
by Sophia Hawkins
Summary: Oneshot. Possible tearjerker. Sometimes man's best friend isn't a dog.


Rainbow Bridge

A/N: A real sad one this time, especially to animal lovers. I won't say turn back now, but get your Kleenex ready because you'll probably need it.

"As you may have noticed this morning, we are short a lieutenant," Boden told the men and women of 51 during the morning brief, "Matt Casey requested a shift off to deal with some personal issues. Herrmann, you're up."

"Sure thing, Chief," Christopher responded from the table where he sat, though nobody was sure what to make of what their battalion chief had just told them.

After the brief and everybody left the room to get ready for work, Herrmann asked the others, "So where _is_ Casey today anyway?"

Severide came up to the others and answered, "He has to go to the vet tomorrow."

A knowing look of dread slowly formed on the others' faces as the realization set in.

"Oh geez," Herrmann muttered.

Eight months ago, Casey had gotten home one night in the dead of winter, and before entering his apartment, stumbled upon a truly pathetic sight. It was a skinny gray haired cat covered in snow, freezing to death and mewling weakly. Casey had never been fond of cats but even he wasn't heartless enough to leave one out in a blizzard to die. Not knowing what he was getting himself into, he'd picked it up and took it inside with him, then dried it with a towel, and scrounged up a can of tuna from the cupboard to feed it. Upon closer inspection he discovered that it was a _she_, and she had been uncertain about him and the apartment but she quickly took to him.

The next day Casey asked some of his neighbors if any of them had had a cat get out, hoping he could find the owner, any owner at all, and get rid of the cat. Nobody had lost a pet, so then he started asking if anybody _wanted_ one. Again, no such luck. And Casey didn't like the odds of trusting a shelter to take her and _not_ kill her, which seemed to be a common thing with cats more than dogs. So he went out and got a bag of cat food and a litter box and let the cat make herself at home temporarily while he tried to find somebody who would take her. In a month he hadn't managed to find anybody that wanted her, and in that month he'd realized he had gotten very attached to her. She slept anywhere in the apartment she wanted, which ranged from the couch to under the table to the windowsill to his dresser drawer, she came running every day for food but it took a couple days for her to actually warm up to him and let him pet her, then she started rubbing against his feet every day. After the first couple of weeks she started purring, and as the days passed he figured out a few things about his new roommate. She had been declawed, evident by the fact she constantly rose on her hind legs and tried to maul the furniture, but all she wound up doing was rubbing everything with her paws. She'd also been fixed and despite her small frame, had the sagging pouch of a stomach to prove it that jiggled left and right when she pranced around the apartment.

The more time passed, the more Casey started to figure out that a cat was actually the perfect pet to have with his firefighter career. Not needing to be walked, he could leave her in the morning, come back 24 hours later and she'd be fine, plenty of food and water, the litter box available to use, and while she seemed happy when he came home the next day, it wasn't the stampeding anxiousness a dog would have that could knock you down as soon as you stepped in the door, whether separated from its owner for 10 minutes or 20 hours. Instead, she seemed fine with the living arrangements and tolerated him and his presence when and as it suited her. She'd come up and rub against his feet, then wait for him to sit down and pounce on his lap, then stand on her hind legs and tilt her head back to have her tiny chin scratched, purring like a machine the entire time, and she was satisfied. So was Casey.

Even for someone with no experience with cats, some things were a given, like the simple fact that you'd never be able to figure them out. One day over the summer she'd gotten out, and Casey had been drawn to a strange buzzing noise and found her playing with a locust she'd caught. She'd press down on its body with her paw, and it would buzz loudly in a scream of protest, then she'd take her paw off the insect and look at it, then press it and make it buzz again. After that, she took to jumping onto Casey's bed at 5 AM every single morning, and waking him up by pressing her paw against his forehead and making a curious 'hmm?' sound every time she did it. Her way of letting him know there was a hole in the center of her bowl and she wanted more food. It was tiring but Casey didn't mind. He'd get up, feed her, then go back to bed for an hour or so until he _had_ to get up and get ready for work.

It definitely hadn't been planned for Casey to have a pet, but that's the way it had worked out, and everybody at 51 had come to know how crazy he was about the cat.

Then a couple weeks ago, Casey's demeanor had changed. He'd started mentioning having to take the cat to the vet and get her looked at. He didn't go into a lot of details, but when he came back the next shift he looked like he'd been run over by a truck. She had cancer. The vet had told him there was a veterinary school where they could try experimental treatments on her, but it would really be more humane to just have her put to sleep. He'd accepted this prognosis, or at least tried to anyway, but he hadn't been ready to let go of her. But he knew the day was going to come when he didn't have a choice. He'd told Kelly the night before that he was taking the shift off, to spend one more full day with her before...

"Poor guy," Herrmann said, "this is why I never let my kids have a pet bigger than a hamster. Bigger they are, harder they are to lose. A goldfish? Those things die in six hours."

"No they don't," Mouch said.

"Well they do at the Herrmann residence," Christopher responded, "I don't know, I think Lee Henry looked at them wrong and scared to them to death or something."

"Know what time tomorrow?" Otis asked Kelly.

Severide looked at the others and answered with a sigh, "8:30 in the morning."

"Feel bad for Casey, that's gonna be rough," Herrmann said as they headed down the hall.

Kelly stayed behind and glumly nodded to himself.

* * *

8 A.M., the shifts changed and the guys from 2nd Watch were ready to go home and get on with their day. Kelly got in his car, and sat behind the wheel for a moment, then started the engine and knew where he had to go. He made a couple stops before he finally reached Casey's apartment around 9. The truck was gone. The door was locked. Kelly sat on the stoop and waited. He didn't know how long he'd be sitting there, but he'd already made up his mind he wasn't moving until Matt came home.

9 o' clock became 10 o' clock, and 10:30, and finally Kelly was Casey's truck coming up the street. The moment of truth. He wasn't looking forward to it but he knew what he had to do. He waited until the truck pulled up to the curb, and he got up, flexing his toes to get some circulation going through his feet again, and headed down the steps to meet Casey. He was slow to shut off the ignition, and slow to get out of the truck. When he finally did, and stepped around to the curb, right away Kelly could tell that he'd been crying. His eyes were bloodshot, his cheeks were flushed, he was holding onto his breath. As soon as Casey opened his mouth to say anything to Kelly, all that came out was a heartbreaking sob. Kelly closed the space between them and hugged his best friend, who it was obvious to see, needed it so desperately right now.

Casey choked on a series of short breaths that entered and exited his body as sobs vibrating through his whole body, he dropped his head on the back of Kelly's shoulder and Severide could feel the tremors rushing through the body pressed against his.

"I'm sorry, buddy," he said consolingly as he cradled the back of Casey's head in his hand and used his other to rub Casey's back between his shoulder blades. He felt Casey weakly latch onto him and felt the Truck lieutenant's hands squeezing handfuls of the back of his shirt.

The tremors became sharp pulsations as Casey started hyperventilating when he couldn't calm down.

"I know, I know," Kelly murmured as he took a step and forced Casey to move with him, "come on, let's go inside."

With a little effort he managed to walk Casey up to the door, got his key, and got the both of them inside.

* * *

Casey felt the sunlight shining against his eyelids, and he was aware again, he was conscious, and all he wanted to do was shut everything back out. But despite that, he opened his eyes, and found himself laying on the couch, covered with a blanket. He turned his head and felt his eyes, already uncomfortable and slightly limited in movement by the dried tears that became sleep crust in the corners and hurt to move them, widen in surprise when he saw Kelly asleep on the floor in a sleeping bag he'd dragged out of Matt's closet.

"Kelly?" Matt's lips and throat were so dry it hurt to talk. How long had he been asleep?

Severide groaned as he opened his eyes and turned on his side and looked up at the blonde man.

"Casey? How're you feeling?"

"What..."

Casey started to remember. It had been yesterday. Yesterday. It was...he looked at the clock, over 24 hours now since...he didn't remember much of the day once he got home, most of it felt like a bad dream by now, but the pain was still very real. Kelly had gotten him over to the living room and settled on the couch just before he collapsed, and aside from a couple trips to the bathroom in between, Casey had no recollection of leaving the living room, or that sofa. He didn't remember eating, he didn't remember talking, all he remembered was sitting there crying, and the whole outside world just seemed to fall away. Morning became afternoon became night and it all seemed to simultaneously take forever to occur, but also seemed to happen all so fast. But he didn't remember falling asleep.

The pain was still raw, but not quite as much as it had been the day before. He decided to chance it, he slowly sat up. He felt old, his bones felt old, he felt like he'd slept for a century.

"Kelly..."

Severide threw back the flap on the sleeping bag and got to his feet, and made his way onto the couch seated beside Casey.

"You alright, buddy?"

Casey shook his head.

"I'm sorry, Matt."

"All the people..." Casey swallowed and tried again to speak, "all the people we've lost on the job...and I..." he shook his head. His eyes were wet with tears starting to build up again and his covered his face with his hands. "I'm losing my mind over a cat...you must think I'm nuts."

Kelly shook his head, and said to him, "I told you that Benny walked out on my mom and me when I was 10, right?"

Casey dropped his gaze to his knees and nodded.

"One of the last good things he did before he left was he got me a dog when I was 8 years old. German shepherd. He died when I was 14, and when he did, my mom pulled me out of school for a week..." Kelly shook his head, "I just couldn't handle it. I get it, believe me, I do."

"She never even had a name," Casey said suddenly. He looked at Kelly, "She was here 8 months...I never even thought to give her a name."

Kelly draped an arm across Casey's shoulders and told him, "I know it's hard, Matt, I know how much you miss her, but you can't make yourself sick over this. You never ate yesterday."

"I can't-"

"You can, you will, or I'll feed you myself," Kelly told him. "Go take a shower, get changed, you'll feel better, I'll start on breakfast, you _need_ to eat."

Reluctantly, Casey got up from the couch. He got a change of clothes, got cleaned up, and hated to admit it but he did feel a little better after he did. It took a little coaxing on Severide's part but Casey finally ate, and after breakfast, Kelly helped him round up all the things for the cat, and helped him get rid of them. Apparently Casey was far enough in the period of mourning that he didn't want any reminders around the apartment, not that Kelly could blame him.

After he'd put the trash bag out at the curb, Kelly asked Casey, "You want me to stay with you today?"

Casey felt the tears welling up again as he shook his head. Even though he couldn't even talk about any of it without still bursting into tears, he insisted, "I'll be fine...I just need to be alone."

"If you change your mind, you know where to find me," Kelly told him.

Casey nodded and managed a sad smile as he said, his voice breaking with every word, "I know...and I appreciate it. Thanks for everything you did."

Kelly hugged him again and told him, "That's what I'm here for." He turned his head and lightly kissed Casey over his temple and added, "It _will_ get better, Casey."

The tears were falling down his face now as he nodded again. "I know...I just want to be by myself. I'll be back on next shift."

"If you're sure," Kelly responded.

"I am."

* * *

2 months later-

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CASEY!"

Matt tried and failed to suppress the smirk on his face as he looked at the sheet cake Otis and Herrmann had brought out for his party at Molly's. In trying to get enough candles on the cake to represent his accurate age, the icing was melting before they could even finish lighting them all.

"Hurry up and blow out the cake before _we_ gotta call the fire department," Christopher said with a knowing smirk.

Casey inhaled and blew hard enough to put out all but three of the candles, the rest of 51 cheered nonetheless. Casey took in a smaller breath and blew out the last three.

"Alright, now let's get this cut, then we'll move onto the presents," Herrmann said, nodding towards a towering pile of gifts stacked on the bar counter.

"Come on, Herrmann," Cruz said, "let's see what he got, _then_ do the cake." The general consensus of the bar was in heavy agreement with Joe.

"Alright, alright," Herrmann waved them off to shut everybody up. "If that's the way you want to do it, fine." He glanced back at the presents and did a double take. "Hey, Otis, you forgot to bring out the main one."

"I did not," Brian replied.

"You did so," Herrmann pointed to the pile, then turned to the younger fireman and said accusingly, "You didn't finish wrapping it, did you?"

"I did too!" Otis insisted.

"Then where is it?"

Otis thought for a second, and told him, "It's still in the back room."

"Alright then," Herrmann turned to Casey and said, "You gotta open that one first. Severide, go get it."

Kelly blinked. "Why me? I don't work here."

"Because it's my bar and I said so, now go get it," Herrmann told the Squad lieutenant.

"Mark your calendars, folks," Otis commented. "Herrmann is telling Severide what to do."

"Shut up," Kelly said as he headed to the back to get it.

Casey took advantage of Severide's absence to tell everyone else standing around the bar, "Thanks you guys, you didn't have to go to all this trouble."

"Hey, the lives we lead, _every_ birthday's a milestone," Herrmann told him, and the bar erupted in a chorus of agreements.

"Well it's hard to argue with that logic," Casey conceded, "but still..."

"Hey Casey!" Severide returned, carrying a large wrapped box and having noticeable trouble walking upright with it. He was half hunched over as he made his way to the bar without dropping it and told Matt, "I know what they got you, a new set of weights." He grunted as he tried to set it on the bar, and just about missed it entirely and instead had to shove it across the counter to balance it. "What's in there, Herrmann, an anvil?"

Herrmann waved him off. "Go ahead, Casey, open it up."

"Thanks, Herrmann," Casey wasn't sure what he was getting into, but he grabbed the red ribbon on the box and the whole thing pulled apart when he touched it, leaving only the wrapping paper, which he realized wasn't wrapped around the box, it was wrapped separately around the box, and its lid, so all he had to do was pull up the lid.

He did. The gasp that escaped his lips was one of sheer, unadulterated surprise.

Standing up on its hind legs in the box among some crumpled pieces of tissue paper, was a small orange and white kitten, that looked up at Casey with a small 'mew'.

Casey recognized it immediately. During a call to a suspected gas leak they'd answered a month ago, it had been in the screen of a second story window crying to get let out. The house was a rental some college athletes were temporarily staying at for the semester. They'd evacuated the house, and it had been to Casey's immense disbelief nobody had gone up to get the kitten, so he did, and came back down the stairs with it riding in one of the pockets of his turnout coat. It had been a lot smaller back then and could easily fit in one of his hands, and took to him immediately. _It_, was also a _she_, and she had been reluctant to get handed back over to the girls staying at the house.

"Oh my God," Casey said in awe. He turned and looked at the others, all of whom shared a knowing look, and asked, "Where'd...how'd..."

"We were driving by a couple weeks ago and saw the house was for rent again," Kelly told him. "And _she_ was out in the yard, they left her behind, so we figured since nobody was going to claim her...we'd take her."

Casey looked around at the rest of the guys from 51 and asked in disbelief, "You were all in on this?"

"We all chipped in and got her fixed, all her shots, and took turns keeping her inside until the stitches came out," Herrmann explained.

Casey looked back at the cat curiously and carefully lifted her out of the box and saw her long fluffy white fur on her underside suddenly became very thin and bordered on flesh toned at her abdomen, he could still see where the stitches had been following the operation. The bi-color cat tried hissing at him but was still too young for that to have much effect.

"Unfortunately we had to have a name for the forms at the vet's office," Otis reached behind the bar and took out a ring with a set of ID tags on it. "So _officially_, her name is Butter Casey."

Matt looked at him questioningly and Brian merely responded, "Apparently the vet can't read _my_ handwriting and had it engraved as he saw fit."

That got a laugh from the others, and Herrmann chimed in, "And as you may have guessed, the rest of the presents are all stuff that you're definitely going to need with her around the apartment."

Casey held the kitten in the crook of one arm and raised his other hand to his mouth as he felt his throat tightening with tears as all of this proved overwhelming to him. Before he even realized what he was doing he found himself doubled over, his voice broken with sobs as he tried to tell the others, "Thank you...you don't know what this means to me."

He felt somebody's hand sharply patting him on the back and heard Severide's voice saying, "Happy birthday, buddy." As Casey straightened his spine and tried to compose himself, Kelly reached over and brushed away the tears already rolling down his face and told him, "Come on, smile so we can get a picture."

* * *

The next night, Kelly went over to Casey's apartment to see how he was doing. He knocked on the door and heard Matt's voice call out, "Come on in, it's open."

He did, and stepping into the living room he was met with the amusing sight of Casey putting the finishing touches on putting together a three-level cat tree with a perch, a pompom on a string to bat, a giant mousehole in the middle, two ramps to climb up, and four scratching post legs on the bottom.

"Having fun?" Kelly asked, noting the kitten lazing on the couch with her tail idly swinging from side to side. He recalled that that was _not_ one of the things they'd gotten Casey to help him get ready for the kitten. Among the stuff they'd wrapped up and taken to Molly's were two food bowls, a litter box and a 20 pound jug, a brush, a 10 pound bag of cat food and a few toys.

"I'm trying to get her broken into it, since she _has_ claws, when they're big enough to actually stick to things, hopefully she won't be tearing up all the furniture," Casey explained.

Kelly smiled to himself, watching how excited Casey was at having a new pet. He knew it had been a rough road for Matt when the first cat died, and he knew they were taking a huge risk getting another one for him to take in, but somehow he'd had a feeling that Casey wouldn't be able to refuse it, and he was right.

"So, you actually gonna call her _Butter_?" Kelly asked.

"I don't know _what_ to call her," Casey told him. "I never got why so many people give their pets stupid names...but I don't know what her name _should_ be."

Kelly looked at the orange and white kitten that sprawled herself across the couch cushion and asked, "Well, what's she look like?"

"I don't know," Casey replied. "But I think I owe her something better than 'Hey you'."

Kelly laughed. "Well, it'll come to you." He went over to the couch, picked the cat up and started talking to her. "Hey cutie-"

The cat hissed and clawed his lip, and the tiny claws stuck.

"OW!"

Casey turned and saw Kelly get her away from his face and set her back down before pressing a finger against his lip that was bleeding.

"You okay?" Matt asked.

"I think you got that scratching post up just in time," Kelly replied with a grimace. "Where's your peroxide?"

"In the medicine cabinet."

"I'll be back in a minute."

Kelly went into the bathroom and doctored up his lip, and when the bleeding finally stopped he headed back to the living room and saw Casey sitting on the couch playing with the kitten.

"Sorry about that," Casey told him.

"Eh, no big deal," Kelly replied as he sat down beside him. He noticed a melancholic expression suddenly appear on Matt's face and asked him, "You okay?"

Casey looked at him and said, "You realize one day it'll be just like the last time, don't you?"

Kelly nodded. "Yeah, but cats live 30 years, especially if they're indoors and taken care of from the start, that's a long time."

Casey nodded in agreement, "I hope so."

* * *

Casey decided to get a shower before he headed in for work that day. He let the water get hot, then stepped in, let it pour down on him for a minute before he grabbed the shampoo and washed his hair. As he got it lathered up and was temporarily blinded with his head tilted down and the soap starting to trail down into his eyes, he felt something brush against his foot and he nearly hit the ceiling.

"AAAHH!"

He used the backs of his hands to wipe the soap from his eyes to open them long enough to make out an orange furball sitting on the shower floor.

"What the?"

Casey let the water wash the worst of the soap out out of his hair and out of his face, then rubbed his eyes and looked again. The kitten was sitting right under the water, letting her paw get wet, then raised it to her face and licked the water off her paw, before sticking it in the water again and repeating the process.

"Oh-kay," Casey said slowly as he stood up straight again, "_that's_ going to take some getting used to."

* * *

Kelly looked over at Casey, who had fallen asleep on the couch while they watched TV, and the kitten who had fallen asleep on his chest. It really was unbelievable how much happier Casey was now with her around.

He'd had a few days to ponder over this, and the conclusion that he reached was that both the first cat, and this new kitten, both represented something different for Casey. The first one, he initially hadn't planned on keeping, but eventually she grew on him, and he'd come to regard her almost as a roommate, somebody to talk to, somebody to have company for the night, simply to not be alone. It had been a great relationship between pet and owner, but Severide could already tell Casey was getting so much more out of the one he had now with the kitten, and he could guess why. It sounded too bizarre to actually say out loud, but where the first one was a substitute for a roommate...this one was a substitute for a kid. Somebody that Casey could raise from virtually the beginning, and play with, and watch her as she grew, and Kelly was sure Casey would true to form of new parents, be in constant amaze and amusement at every little thing she did. It was honestly the strangest thing Kelly had ever seen, and he was so thankful for it for his friend's sake. At least Matt had _somebody_ around constantly so he wasn't alone. And it seemed to Kelly that that was the best thing that could happen to Casey.


End file.
